I am a creationist. But not YEC. When I read Genesis 1 the earth is in existence before the first day of creation week. Creation week involves “living creatures”, with the “breath of life” (v40), the life is “in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). Did the ancient Hebrew mean only red blood, which is what a layman/normal usage regards as blood? Or did the Bible also have haemocyanin in mind. Are emotionless, brainless snails without red blood cells, and without a proper brain and without proper lungs regarded as “living creatures”, with the “breath of life”, is the “life in the blue goo”, or rather “the life is in the blood” Without going into detail/exceptions, like snails with red blood, for the sake of argument I regard creation week simply as the creation of vertebrates and terrestrial plants.
I believe these were created fully formed during the Cambrian Explosion, without fossil precursor. Some have tried to link the Cambrian Explosion with the small shellies of the Ediacaran, but there lacks any convincing transitional fossils between the two.
The reality of the fossil record is that there truly appears to be a creation event when multiple species and even nearly every known phyla appeared fully formed in the Cambrian, without the slightest signs of previous transitional forms leading to their appearance in that early Cambrian fossil record.
I’m curious to hear your views on this from a fossil perspective. Looking at Mindspawn’s view on creation week, does the fossil record in any way contradict my biblical view?
I don’t think this is correct but I don’t have a source handy.
You need to read up on the history. It was an “explosion” only in geological time. Certainly it took a lot longer than God would take to create the body plans. To me it is certainly an example of God’s creation but there is no connection to Genesis.
Timeframes aside, these phyla did appear fully formed and without fossil precursor. Wikipedia says the following, and if you doubt wikipedia on such a well known subject, you are welcome to look at their references:
The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted by William Buckland in the 1840s,[14] and in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species , Charles Darwin discussed the then inexplicable lack of earlier fossils as one of the main difficulties for his theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.[15] The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly, without precursor, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin of animal life. Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures remaining in Cambrian rocks.
Well there’s an incomplete fossil record if you assume evolution, then of course the lack of intermediates seems “incomplete”
Evolutionists use the theory of “punctuated equilibrium” to explain the lack of transitionary fossils. Under the theory of evolution, this does make sense, but unfortunately there’s not a scrap of evidence for it to explain the abrupt appearance of nearly every phyla and multiple species in the Cambrian Explosion. Occam’s Razor should logically be applied, the simplest explanation of the Cambrian Explosion, evidence based, is that in fact nearly every major phyla and multiple species did in fact just appear as the fossil evidence shows.
While differing significantly in details, both Whittington and Gould proposed that all modern animal phyla had appeared almost simultaneously in a rather short span of geological period. This view led to the modernization of Darwin’s tree of life and the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which Eldredge and Gould developed in the early 1970s and which views evolution as long intervals of near-stasis “punctuated” by short periods of rapid change.[26]
Thanks Hillary. This is the usual detailed explanation for the lack of evidence of evolution, rather than being evidence for evolution. Sure soft bodies do not fossilise easily, evolutionists therefore assume there are multiple soft bodied transitional forms for the thousands of species that appeared in the Cambrian Explosions. Creationists simply accept what they see, the sudden appearance of thousands of species, fully formed.
But honestly, one would expect something, anything, that showed some transition from a certain small shelley to a certain species of vertebrate. Or even directly from an earlier microbe. In the absence of evidence, creationism is the stronger explanation for what we observe in the fossil record, despite the intelligent responses of evolutionists in explaining the evolutionary pressures and lack of fossilisation in that so-called transitionary period. The explanations still involve a lack of evidence to support them, as opposed to the multiple appearance of thousands of species being exactly what creationists would predict in the fossil record.
This is false. Stem groups first appear. Meaning they had some but not all the characteristics of the modern crown groups. These are the transitional fossils you seek. Look at groups such as the lobopods. The genetic evidence also demonstrates the phyla are Precambrian in origin and that most of the genes were already present before the Cambrian.
Also, while many of the SSF are problematic, some have been linked to modern phyla. The fuse leading up to the Cambrian is very evident.
Sure, under evolutionary assumptions, even the existence of prokaryotes is evidence of evolution. The existence of genes could be seen as such.
But in this thread, we are looking for convincing transitionary forms where the existence of species in the Cambrian Explosion can be seen in the body plan of transitionary forms in the fossil record. Without that, they seem to have appeared out of nowhere. Which would not threaten evolutionary theory if it was just a few, but the sheer extent of the lack of transitionary fossils does threaten evolutionary assumptions.
Evolutionary theory is true. And transitional forms are found throughout the fossil record.
However as an explanation for the appearance of thousands of species , fully formed, without fossil precursor in the early Cambrian, the theory falls short.
There is no exact number of transitionals required, if there are even just a few, yet very convincing transitions from earlier microbes or Ediacaran shellies to vertebrates, that would be a good start.
Thanks lobopods look very interesting indeed. The flaw with using them as transitionals is that they also appeared around the early Cambrian, also fully formed. They don’t seem to be a transition from any specific small shelley, have you any particular small shelley in mind? They look a separate unique group that also appeared suddenly, do any later lobopods match any early vertebrates to a significant degree?
Stop saying fully formed. Read Graham Budd. The lobopods are transitional to Arthropoda. The early Cambrian is filled with these types of groups. But you aren’t going to count them because they aren’t precambrian? Why should we expect that type of precision that far back in the record? And why aren’t you taking into the account the genetic evidence that says the animals you are looking for did exist?
I feel like you are making the “filling a gap just creates two more gaps” argument. I told
You when you to look for transitional fossils and you are replying “okay but what about here?”
Yes, filling a gap does create two more gaps, because we are not sure if the gap is filled unless there’s a convincing transition. It doesn’t taken approximate guesswork to fill a gap, but the forms must have a close match to the forms on either side. The lobopod has possibilities, but isn’t even close to it’s so-called predecessor , nor it’s so-called descendent to be anything more than a possibility.
So among thousands of transitionals, you have one interesting possibility to show that maybe there’s evidence for evolution when the fossil record is pointing directly to a massive creation event. Occam’s razor favors creation , looking at the evidence of thousands of fully formed species just appearing in the early Cambrian.
Not only that, but I acknowledge a clade and variation within that clade , as per trilobites which radiated into various environments and showed strong adaptation during that radiation. But their transition is obvious and within their clade, not at all like the sudden appearance of vertebrates.
You do not regard the creation week as six literal days, correct? The creation week, in your words, describes the creation of vertebrates and terrestrial plants, right?
My question is: why do you make this argument when the creation week also details the creation of the sun and moon?